Watten, August 27, 1943
THE BRIEFING FOR the August 27th attack against the “special installations” at Watten, France, was well calculated to arouse both speculation and concern among the 303rd crews assigned to take part in the operation. Bud Klint wrote that “the utmost secrecy shrouded the exact nature of the target we were to bomb that day. The CO claimed to know nothing about it, and apparently even the High Command hadn’t been able to tell much about these new installations, which were beginning to appear along the Channel coast.”
Elmer Brown noted that the target was “unknown” and “thought to be a new munitions dump,” while Bob Hullar described it as “heavy construction work. Secret.”
George Hoyt remembers it as “a group of concrete reinforced buildings hidden in a woods.”
Whatever these structures were, the Eighth was going after them with a vengeance. All 16 of its B-17 groups were laid on to hit this target, and to discourage diversions from the main effort, secondary or last resort targets weren’t even assigned. Each bomber was to carry two 2000-pound high-explosive general-purpose bombs on external bomb shackles, and to ensure maximum accuracy, the Fortresses were to drop from 18,000 feet rather than the usual 25,000 feet.
Since fighter escorts for this shallow penetration were supposed to be ample—RAF Spitfires and U.S. P-47s—it was the low bombing altitude that caused the greatest concern among the bomber crews. During the enlisted briefing, George Hoyt remembers “a groan going up when the altitude was announced. Everyone realized the German 88s were deadly accurate at this height.”
303rd Bomb Group Mission Route(s): Watten, August 27, 1943. (Map courtesy waters Design Associates, Inc.)
Back in Luscious Lady, Hullar’s crew was one of 20 the 303rd launched between 1625 and 1636. They filled the No. 5 high squadron slot off the right wing of Winning Run, B-17F 42-29944, flown by Lt. Jake James’s crew. Leading the 427th in Vicious Virgin, B-17F 42-5341, was one of Major Ed Snyde’s best crews: Lt. A.C. Strickland’s. Snyder had good reason to have his top talent there, since the Virgin was also carrying a prime piece of top brass: General Williams, Commander of the First Bomb Wing. He was present because the 303rd was heading the entire Eighth Air Force on this strike, and the Eighth’s generals were the kind who led by example, taking the same risks their men did.
The 360th Squadron was leading the 303rd, with Major Calhoun in command again, even though he had just led the Group on the August 19th mission to Gilze-Rijen. He was flying in Satan’s Workshop, B-17F 42-29931, with a Colonel Lacey from First Bomb Wing Headquarters. In the No. 3 slot off to Major Calhoun’s left was Lt. G.W. Crockett and crew in Shangrila Lil, B-17F 42-29754; it was the sixth mission for most of the men. Flying once again in the “tail-end Charlie” position of the low squadron was Lt. Jack Hendry’s crew in Charlie Horse, B-17F 42-29571.
The 303rd approached the target area through hazy and cloudy skies that allowed 20 to 30 Me-109s and FW-190s—“some yellow noses, some black”—to make a sweeping tail attack at 1840, about five minutes before the formation got to the IP. The Lady caught a 20mm cannon shell over her No. 3 gas tank, which fortunately didn’t explode, and the RAF Spitfires quickly dispersed the German fighters. Elmer Brown wrote that “we had wonderful fighter escort—three squadrons of Spit IXs, one on each side and one above.”
In Winning Run, Lt. Paul Scoggins also felt there was “no enemy fighter opposition to speak of.”
It was on the bomb run that the trouble really hit. The objective lay near the town of St. Omer and was protected by a six-gun battery of 88s (88mm antiaircraft guns) one mile to the south and a four-gun battery in the woods about a quarter mile to the north. The Group was coming in at close to 16,000 feet and, in accordance with standard procedure, wasn’t deviating at all during the bomb run.
As Major Calhoun described it, “We had about a three-and-one-half-minute bomb run about as straight as an arrow. There was haze and cloud cover for about half the bomb run, and with about one minute to go, my bombardier, Lt. Fawcett [Jack B. Fawcett, Brush, Colorado], got the target in his sights and let the bombs go. I only saw about four or five fighters myself and didn’t worry much about them, but that Flak was about the most accurate I have ever seen.”
Just about every crew complained about making the run at 16,000 feet—with good reason. The Group’s records describe the flak as being “moderate” but “very accurate, especially on bombing run,” and only one of the bombers escaped damage. Luscious Lady was hit, returning with two shrapnel holes in her fuselage, and when Lt. Cogswell later landed Iza Vailable at the English fighter field at Manston with three badly damaged engines, Sgt. Eddie Deerfield counted “no less than 200 flak holes.”
However, it was the ship that didn’t come home that seared the souls of those who saw her end. Shangrila Lil, flown by Lt. Crockett and his crew, went down three miles north of St. Omer at 1848.
There is no way that statistics can convey the horror that war holds; it must be seen and felt firsthand to be understood, and in the loss of this B-17, Bud Klint gained a terrible insight into the events that he was part of.
“I saw something that day that even yet sends chills down my spine. The ground gunners scored a direct hit on one of our ships. The exploding shell blasted the cabin of the ship wide open. I could look right down into the cockpit and see the pilot and the copilot sitting there—they didn’t have a prayer!”
“They didn’t have a prayer!” Lt. G.W. Crockett and crew from the 360th Squadron pose in front of their ship, Shangrila Lil, B-17F 42-29754, PU
B. This photo was taken on August 8, 1943 Just days before plane and crew were shot out of the sky on the raid against the “special installations” at Watten, France. [Photo courtesy National Archives (USAF Photo).]
Others observing the loss of Shangrila Lil reported it with the same vehemence. Lt. J.R. Johnston’s crew, flying in the No. 6 slot of the low squadron, said: “Blown all to hell. Shell hit between No. 3 engine and cockpit or in bomb bay and broke ship up…Plane was hit by flak in vicinity of bomb bay, the burst practically disintegrating ship in midair. Four to six parachutes were seen to open.”
John Doherty, flying next to them in Charley Horse, was also a witness. “I saw one time—this I don’t think I’ll ever forget—where a burst of flak hit a B-17, and apparently hit it someplace in the front of the plane. All that was left from the bomb bay forward was a puff of smoke, and you could see the bombs hanging in the bomb bay. The B-17 went flying right along for about 15 seconds or so, and then it peeled off on a wing and went down.”
Of all those in the formation, no one had a more terrible view of what happened than Lt. Carl Fyler, who was flying Thumper Again, B-17F 42-5393, in the second element lead of the low squadron: “Lt. Crockett’s ship directly in front of us took a direct hit in the cockpit. Chunks of flesh came back at us, across our windshield. My copilot became ill. Crockett’s ship seemed to come to a complete stop. Since I was directly behind him, with wingmen on both sides, I could not turn away to avoid a collision. I cut the throttles, and ‘fish-tailed’ the bird, praying I’d miss the stricken ship. Somehow, it seemed to float over my right wing and was gone.”*
As Lt. Scoggins put it in his diary, “The flak was very accurate for our altitude, which was 16,000.” The Group’s B-17s continued on the bomb run, but the bombing was only “good” to “poor;” the bombardiers were stymied by ground haze and the fact that the bomb run went into the sun. Group records state that the “Bombardiers were almost unanimous in saying it was virtually impossible to see the target until it was too late.”
All in all, however, bombing results for the day were considered good. VIII Bomber Command reported that “The bombers dropped 368 tons on their pinpoint target and completely blanketed it.” Four B-17’s were lost.
And the target itself? Months later it proved to be a launching site for Hitler’s V-l rocket “buzz bombs,” a light installation the Eighth would frequently hit with 300-pound bombs from a variety of altitudes. The road to “daylight precision bombing” was never easy.